Celtic flair

Where would we be without eccentricity in cooking, the fusion of ethnic ingredients, the cult of youthful celebrity? The answer, according to Egon Ronay in his new RAC Guide, is that we'd have a lot less pretension and a lot more basic good cooking. He may well be right. But what is one to make of his claim that "the Scots often have the makings of more intuitive chefs than others"? No surprise in that. They have the ingredients and the imagination that comes from making much from little. Still, after all that beef and turnips, how about some won ton soup followed by a nice chicken curry and mango sorbet?